The Boundary Work of Commercial Friendship

With the aim to reconsider lifestyle values in relation to economic rationality in small tourism and hospitality businesses, we focus on the “commercial home” as a site where boundaries between personal and commercial values are constantly performed in practice. Through an interactionist analysis of the narrative of a B&B and gallery owner, we illustrate the emergence of intimacy as a commercial value in the hospitality industry. We analyse the formation of values as a dynamic social process where a traditional market ethos is both rejected and reformulated. We argue that by focusing on the co-creation of value in interactions between producers and consumers, new possibilities to analyse service economy dynamics become visible

Det stora vardagsrummet

Resultatet av de senaste decenniernas trafikplanering, där bilismen riktats stort fokus, tyder på ett behov av en ökad förståelse för hur detta påverkar rekreativa värden i staden. Det här arbetet undersöker möjligheten att genom film skildra denna problematik. Ett försök att gestalta hur transporter i staden påverkar det offentliga rummet och dess värden. Arbetet inleds av en filmstudie som genom en fri filmmetod söker efter skildringar av aspekter kopplade till detta. Studien rör sig mellan miljöer som på olika vis påverkas av trafiknätet. Från högt trafikerade vägar, korsningar samt områden fria från biltrafik. Under denna process studeras hur ljudmiljöer och rumsligheter förändras beroende av trafiksituationen. Studien undersöker hur olika typer av transportsätt lyckas förhålla sig till rekreativa värden i staden som grönska och aktivitet. Fokus riktas även mot mänskliga perspektiv där upplevelser av vistelsen i det offentliga rummet önskas synliggöras. Genom denna filmmetod väcks frågeställningar gällande Malmös trafiknät. Dessa filmatiseras med hjälp av klipptekniker och filmiskt berättande. Denna process inspireras av andra projekt som lyckats representera landskap, ljudmiljöer och mänskliga perspektiv genom film. Studien resulterar i 14 kortfilmer som på olika vis diskuterar kring dagens trafikplanering. De skildrar personliga tolkningar av iakttagelser som uppenbarats under studien. Med hjälp av film gestaltas ljudmiljöer, rörelse och atmosfäriska kvaliteter vilket önskar kunna bidra till förståelsen kring hur dagens trafiknät påverkar den offentliga miljön och förutsättningarna för ett hälsofrämjande liv inom det. Filmerna som producerats under detta arbete finns att se på: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC52YRM6qdDqYcZEM1AtSqkQThe results of the traffic planning of recent decades, where motoring has been given a major focus, indicate a need for a better understanding of how this affects recreational values. In this work, I wish to investigate this through film and create pictures of this problem. An attempt to show how transports in the city affects the public space and its values. The study begins with a film study which, through a free film method, searches for aspects linked to this problem. The study moves between environments that in different ways are affected by the traffic network. From high-traffic roads, intersections and areas free of car traffic. During this process, I studied how sound environments and public spaces change depending on the traffic situation. The study examines how different types of transport succeed to coexist together with recreational values in the city, such as greenery and activity. The focus was also to represent human perspectives where experiences of the public space were highlighted and made visible. Through this film method, questions were raised regarding Malmö’s traffic network. These were made into short films with the help of editing techniques and cinematic storytelling. This process is inspired by other projects that have managed to represent landscapes, sound environments and human perspectives through film. The study results in 14 short films that in various ways discuss current traffic planning. They depict personal interpretations of observations revealed during the study. With the help of film, sound environments, movement and atmospheric qualities are portrayed, which wishes to contribute to the understanding of how today’s traffic network affects the public environment and the conditions for a health-promoting life within it. The films produced during this work can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC52YRM6qdDqYcZEM1AtSqk

Sustainable mobility in ski resorts : a study of the work for sustainable mobility in Swedish mountain destinations

Denna studie handlar om hur fjällturism på olika sätt kan arbeta för att minska sin miljöpåverkan av persontransporter. Det finns en tydlig trend inom dagens turism som säger att naturen lockar fler människor än någonsin. Turistdestinationer i svenska fjällen beräknas få fler turister och en ökad besöksnäring. Samtidigt skapar turismen stora miljöpåverkningar, framför allt på grund av att många besökare transportera sig med bil. Detta är en stor utmaning för svenska fjällturismdestinationer. Antalet transporter måste minska i framtiden. Detta kommer att kräva stora strukturella förändringar och insatser från turistindustrin, som står för en stor del av de infrastrukturella investeringarna i dessa områden. Idag sker omställningen mot miljövänliga transportalternativ för långsamt. Därför är det viktigt att medvetenhet om vikten av denna omställning sprids och blir tydlig. Bilen ses för många som en självklar del i sättet vi transporterar oss på, men forskning visar att bilanvändandet måste minska för att vi ska kunna uppnå ett hållbart transportnät. För att de svenska fjälldestinationerna ska kunna uppnå en fortsatt positiv utveckling i antalet besökare måste kollektiva alternativ samt gång och cykel prioriteras. Detta har redan gjort med framgång på många liknande platser i världen. I min studie tar jag bland annat upp exempel från alperna där en omställning skett från bilberoende till miljövänliga alternativ. En sådan omställning har visats kunna påverka besöksnäringen positivt när den integreras och utformas på ett sätt som underlättar resandet, skapar bättre tillgänglighet och gynnar det lokala samhället. En sådan förändring beskrivs som komplex och kräver samverkan mellan samhällets olika aktörer, beslutsfattare och befolkning. Detta är viktigt eftersom ett välfungerande transportsystem utvecklas av alla som använder det och omställningsprocessen sker genom en gemensam beteendeförändring. Jag har valt att närmare undersöka skidorten Åre för att identifiera hur arbetet kring omställningen mot hållbara alternativ utvecklas. Det sker idag satsningar på kollektivt resande och cykelbanor i Åre men på många platser är det glest befolkat och detta försvårar satsningar på kollektiva alternativ. Bilberoendet är utbrett och står för en stor del av kommunens utsläpp av växthusgaser. Många som besöker Åre tar sig också dit med bil vilket skapar påfrestningar på miljö och människor. För att uppnå målen om en hållbar mobilitet måste Åre och andra svenska fjälldestinationer göra satsningar på miljövänliga transportmedel. Genom att utnyttja underlaget av turister har dessa orter möjlighet att utveckla de kollektiva nätet och göra satsningar på hållbara alternativ. För att detta ska kunna genomföras krävs samverkan. Skistar är ett företag som har stor påverkan på Åres utveckling. Samarbetet mellan Skistar och övriga aktörer måste förbättras och styra riktningen för transportnätet i en hållbar riktning. Detta är bara möjligt om konkreta gemensamma mål fastställs. De satsningar som görs för de alternativa transportmedlen måste också marknadsföras och anpassas för att omställningen ska locka och accepteras av samhället liksom turistnäringen.This study is about how mountain tourism can work in different ways to reduce its environmental impact on passenger transport. There is a trend in today's tourism that says that nature attracts more people than ever. Tourist destinations in Swedish mountain regions are expected to attract more tourists in the future. At the same time, tourism creates major environmental impacts, one issue is the fact that many visitors are traveling by car. This is a major challenge for tourism destinations. The number of transports needs to decrease in the future. This will require major structural changes and efforts from the tourism industry, which account for a large part of the infrastructure investments in these areas. Today, the shift towards environmentally friendly transports takes place too slowly. Therefore, it is important that awareness of the importance of this problem is spread and become clear. The car is seen to many as an obvious part of the way we transport, but research shows that car use must be reduced in order to achieve a sustainable transport network. In order for the Swedish mountain destinations to achieve continued positive development in the number of visitors, collective alternatives as well as walking and cycling must be prioritized. This has already been done successfully in many similar places in the world. In my study, I am giving examples from the Alps, where a change has been made from car dependence to environmentally friendly alternatives. Such a change has been shown to be able to positively influence the visitor industry when integrated and designed in a way that creates better accessibility and benefits local communities. Such a change is described as complex and requires interaction between society's different actors, decision makers and the local community. This is important because a well-functioning transport system is being developed by everyone who uses it and the development takes place through a common change in behavior. I have learnt more about Åre ski resort to identify how the work on improving sustainable alternatives is being developed. Today there are investments being made in public transport and cycle tracks in Åre, but in many places Åre is sparsely populated, and this complicates efforts on collective alternatives. Car dependence is widespread and accounts for a large part of the municipalitys greenhouse gas emissions. Many visiting Åre also get there by car, which creates stress on the environment and on people. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable mobility, Åre and other Swedish mountain destinations must make efforts on environmentally friendly transports. By utilizing the basis of tourists, these resorts have the opportunity to develop collective networks and make efforts on sustainable alternatives. In order for this to be carried out, cooperation is key. Skistar is a company that has a major influence on the development in Åre. The cooperation between Skistar and other actors must be improved and the transport network must be controlled towards a sustainable direction. This is only possible if common goals are established. The efforts made for the alternative means of transport must also be marketed and adapted for it to attract guests and become accepted by the local community

Resourcification : A Non-Essentialist Theory of Resources for Sustainable Development

Overuse of resources is accelerating today’s negative trends in climate change, ecosystem destruction, and biodiversity loss. The ultimate result is contemporary human societies are reaching or exceeding the limits of planetary boundaries. It is therefore imperative to articulate a new theoretical understanding of resources and the ethical, political and environmental conditions of their use. In this article, we introduce a radical departure from existing paradigms, which treat resources as having fixed essential qualities usually ready-to-exploit by anyone who finds them, to a non-essentialist theory of how resources never exist in this fashion as such. Instead, they come into being as the result of social processes. We label this approach resourcification. This shift offers a new theoretical platform for developing a post-sustainability understanding of the relationships of humans to humans, to other living creatures, and to the physical environment, which is more suited to meet the challenges of working with the sustainable development goals in the Anthropocene

The making of a beach

In the Anthropocene, it becomes problematic to imagine a sustainable balance between society and the environment. This calls for post-sustainability modes of articulating human/non-human relationships. As an attempt towards an Anthropocenic understanding of society and the environment, we analyse how ecosystem services are mobilised in marine spatial planning in the south of Sweden. The study investigates how ecosystem services are understood and narrated in environmental strategy and interviews with environmental planners. We focus on seaweed and sand. These are two kinds of materials and potential resources that materially circulate and force together society and the environment in planning discourse and practice. Our findings show that although ecosystem services are readily understood as an anthropocentric construction, when mobilised in planning to manage an unruly nature they can be re-storied as an ontological mediator in human/non-human relations

Maternal gut and breast milk microbiota affect infant gut antibiotic resistome and mobile genetic elements

Publisher Copyright: © 2018, The Author(s).The infant gut microbiota has a high abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) compared to adults, even in the absence of antibiotic exposure. Here we study potential sources of infant gut ARGs by performing metagenomic sequencing of breast milk, as well as infant and maternal gut microbiomes. We find that fecal ARG and mobile genetic element (MGE) profiles of infants are more similar to those of their own mothers than to those of unrelated mothers. MGEs in mothers' breast milk are also shared with their own infants. Termination of breastfeeding and intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis of mothers, which have the potential to affect microbial community composition, are associated with higher abundances of specific ARGs, the composition of which is largely shaped by bacterial phylogeny in the infant gut. Our results suggest that infants inherit the legacy of past antibiotic consumption of their mothers via transmission of genes, but microbiota composition still strongly impacts the overall resistance load.Peer reviewe

Inherited DNA repair gene mutations in men with lethal prostate cancer

Germline variants in DNA repair genes are associated with aggressive prostate cancer (PrCa). The aim of this study was to characterize germline variants in DNA repair genes associated with lethal PrCa in Finnish and Swedish populations. Whole-exome sequencing was performed for 122 lethal and 60 unselected PrCa cases. Among the lethal cases, a total of 16 potentially damaging protein-truncating variants in DNA repair genes were identified in 15 men (12.3%). Mutations were found in six genes with CHEK2 (4.1%) and ATM (3.3%) being most frequently mutated. Overall, the carrier rate of truncating variants in DNA repair genes among men with lethal PrCa significantly exceeded the carrier rate of 0% in 60 unselected PrCa cases (p = 0.030), and the prevalence of 1.6% (p < 0.001) and 5.4% (p = 0.040) in Swedish and Finnish population controls from the Exome Aggregation Consortium. No significant difference in carrier rate of potentially damaging nonsynonymous single nucleotide variants between lethal and unselected PrCa cases was observed (p = 0.123). We confirm that DNA repair genes are strongly associated with lethal PrCa in Sweden and Finland and highlight the importance of population-specific assessment of variants contributing to PrCa aggressiveness.</p

Clonal Hematopoiesis and Blood-Cancer Risk Inferred from Blood DNA Sequence

Background Cancers arise from multiple acquired mutations, which presumably occur over many years. Early stages in cancer development might be present years before cancers become clinically apparent. Methods We analyzed data from whole-exome sequencing of DNA in peripheral-blood cells from 12,380 persons, unselected for cancer or hematologic phenotypes. We identified somatic mutations on the basis of unusual allelic fractions. We used data from Swedish national patient registers to follow health outcomes for 2 to 7 years after DNA sampling. Results Clonal hematopoiesis with somatic mutations was observed in 10% of persons older than 65 years of age but in only 1% of those younger than 50 years of age. Detectable clonal expansions most frequently involved somatic mutations in three genes (DNMT3A, ASXL1, and TET2) that have previously been implicated in hematologic cancers. Clonal hematopoiesis was a strong risk factor for subsequent hematologic cancer (hazard ratio, 12.9; 95% confidence interval, 5.8 to 28.7). Approximately 42% of hematologic cancers in this cohort arose in persons who had clonality at the time of DNA sampling, more than 6 months before a first diagnosis of cancer. Analysis of bone marrow–biopsy specimens obtained from two patients at the time of diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia revealed that their cancers arose from the earlier clones. Conclusions Clonal hematopoiesis with somatic mutations is readily detected by means of DNA sequencing, is increasingly common as people age, and is associated with increased risks of hematologic cancer and death. A subset of the genes that are mutated in patients with myeloid cancers is frequently mutated in apparently healthy persons; these mutations may represent characteristic early events in the development of hematologic cancers. (Funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and others.)National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (Grant U54 HG003067)National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (Grant R01 HG006855)Stanley Center for Psychiatric ResearchAlexander and Margaret Stewart TrustNational Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant R01 MH 077139)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant RC2 MH089905)Sylvan C. Herman Foundatio