Möjligheternas skog

The Swedish forestry aims primarily maximize production and economical wins. However, especially urban forests have great qualities as space for recreation and children's play, which means that other goals should lead the forests management. The Teleborg forest is a wooded area in Växjö, surrounded by urban dwellings, schools, nurseries etc. A great part of the forest was wind felled during the storm Gudrun in 2005 which changed the forest, earlier dominated by spruce, dramatically. Now there is great need for regeneration and opportunities for new ideas and change. The main objective of this thesis has been to make a plan for the forests development into a neighbourwood, for recreation, play and education with great values of experiences. As a part of my work I wanted to interact with the visitors and neighbours to understand their experiences of the forest, their wishes and needs. Together with them, during meetings and walks, I have tried to get to know the forest through their view and take part of their local knowledge. I have searched for answers on questions that tell about the relationship between the visitors and the forest; which is the favourite walk, the short cut to school, where are the best climbing trees, where are the favourite places of the small children and so on. Also the meetings with the managers to get their view of the forest have been an important part. In parallel I have studied literature about visual preferences and construction, form, design and management of the urban forests. Out of the conversations, meetings, literature studies and analysis the work has led to a proposal for developing the Teleborg forest.Stora delar av den svenska skogen sköts med huvudmålet att ge en så god produktion och ekonomisk vinst som möjligt. Framförallt tätortsnära skog har emellertid ofta stora kvaliteter som miljö för lek och rekreation vilket gör att skogens förvaltning bör styras av andra mål. Teleborgsskogen är ett skogsområde mitt inne i Växjö stad, omgivet av bostadsområden, skolor, förskolor m.m. En stor del av skogen blåste ner i stormen Gudrun 2005 vilket förändrade den tidigare granskogen dramatiskt. Nu krävs insatser för föryngring och det har öppnat upp för nya tankar och möjligheter till förändring. Min uppgift, genom det här examensarbetet, har varit att ge ett förslag till hur skogen kan utvecklas till en skog för rekreation, lek och lärande med höga upplevelsevärden. Som ett led i arbetet har jag velat få med skogsbesökarnas och de närboendes upplevelser av skogen och deras önskemål och behov. I dialog med dem, under möten och skogspromenader, har jag velat lära känna skogen utifrån deras perspektiv och ta del av deras lokala kunskap. Jag har sökt svar på frågor som berättar om relationen mellan besökarna och skogen; vilket är favoritskogspromenaden, genvägen till skolan, var står klätterträden och vilka är förskolebarnens favoritplatser etc. En betydelsefull del av arbetet har också träffarna med skogens förvaltare varit, för att också få deras syn på skogen. Parallellt har jag studerat litteratur om visuella preferenser och den tätortsnära skogens uppbyggnad, utformning och förvaltning. Utifrån samtal och möten, litteraturstudier och analys har arbetet lett fram till ett förslag till utveckling för Teleborgsskogen. Ett förslag som kretsar kring upplevelser och variation, med plats för såväl lek, äventyr och lärande som träning, avkoppling och skogskänsla, och vars kärna är ett landskapsarboretum i Linnés anda

Human Protein Phosphatase PP6 Regulatory Subunits Provide Sit4-Dependent and Rapamycin–Sensitive Sap Function in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae the protein phosphatase Sit4 and four associated proteins (Sap4, Sap155, Sap185, and Sap190) mediate G1 to S cell cycle progression and a number of signaling events controlled by the target of rapamycin TOR signaling cascade. Sit4 and the Sap proteins are ubiquitously conserved and their human orthologs, PP6 and three PP6R proteins, share significant sequence identity with their yeast counterparts. However, relatively little is known about the functions of the PP6 and PP6R proteins in mammalian cells. Here we demonstrate that the human PP6R proteins physically interact with Sit4 when expressed in yeast cells. Remarkably, expression of PP6R2 and PP6R3 but not expression of PP6R1 rescues the growth defect and rapamycin hypersensitivity of yeast cells lacking all four Saps, and these effects require Sit4. Moreover, PP6R2 and PP6R3 enhance cyclin G1 gene expression and DNA synthesis, and partially abrogate the G1 cell cycle delay and the budding defect of the yeast quadruple sap mutant strain. In contrast, the human PP6R proteins only modestly support nitrogen catabolite gene expression and are unable to restore normal levels of eIF2α phosphorylation in the quadruple sap mutant strain. These results illustrate that the human PP6-associated proteins are capable of providing distinct rapamycin-sensitive and Sit4-dependent Sap functions in the heterologous context of the yeast cell. We hypothesize that the human Saps may play analogous roles in mTORC1-PP6 signaling events in metazoans

Parameter space mapping of InAs nanowire crystal structure

Crystal structure and defects have been shown to have a strong impact on III-Vnanowire properties. Recently, it was demonstrated that the issue of random stacking and polytypism in semiconductornanowires can often be controlled using accessible growth parameters (such as temperature, diameter, and V/III ratio). In addition, it has been shown that crystal phase can be tuned selectively between cubic zinc blende and hexagonal wurtzite within individual nanowires of III-V materials such as InAs. In order for such results to be generally applied to different growth setups, it is necessary to fully explore and understand the trends governing crystal phase dependencies on all accessible growth parameters, including how they relate to each other. In this study, the authors have systematically investigated the influence of temperature, diameter, V/III ratio, and total mass flow on the crystal structure of InAsnanowiresgrown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy over a broad parameter range. The authors observed that each of these accessible parameters can affect the resulting crystal structure, and that the trends for each parameter are affected by the magnitude of the others. The authors also noted that most of the parameter dependencies are nonlinear and, in fact, exhibit threshold values at which structure changes discontinuously. By optimizing each of the growth parameters, it is shown that pure ZB or pure WZ phase can be achieved for several different sets of growth conditions. The roles of nucleation kinetics, thermodynamics, and precursor chemistry are also discussed to compare the results to current nanowiregrowth models. The results in this work should facilitate comparison of data and transfer of knowledge between different growth systems and techniques, which, in turn, should lead to greater understanding of polytypism in nanowires and greater control and freedom in nanowire crystal phase engineering.This work was supported by the Nanometer Structure Consortium at Lund University nmC@LU, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research SSF, the Swedish Research Council VR, and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

Oscillatory Instabilities of Standing Waves in One-Dimensional Nonlinear Lattices

In one-dimensional anharmonic lattices, we construct nonlinear standing waves (SWs) reducing to harmonic SWs at small amplitude. For SWs with spatial periodicity incommensurate with the lattice period, a transition by breaking of analyticity versus wave amplitude is observed. As a consequence of the discreteness, oscillatory linear instabilities, persisting for arbitrarily small amplitude in infinite lattices, appear for all wave numbers Q not equal to zero or \pi. Incommensurate analytic SWs with |Q|>\pi/2 may however appear as 'quasi-stable', as their instability growth rate is of higher order.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Spleen proteomics data from high fat diet fed mice

The composition of the diet affects many processes in the body, including body weight and endocrine system. We have previously shown that dietary fat also affects the immune system. Mice fed high fat diet rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids survive S. aureus infection to a much greater extent than mice fed high fat diet rich in saturated fatty acids. Here we present data regarding the dietary effects on protein expression in spleen from mice fed three different diets, I) low fat/chow diet (LFD, n = 4), II) high fat diet rich in saturated fatty acids (HFD-S, n = 4) and III) high fat diet rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (HFD-P, n = 4). We performed mass spectrophotometry based quantitative proteomics analysis of isolated spleen by implementing the isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) approach. Mass spectrometry data were analyzed using Proteome Discoverer 2.4 software using the search engine mascot against Mus musculus in SwissProt. 924 proteins are identified in all sets (n = 4) for different dietary effects taken for statistical analysis using Qlucore Omics Explorer software. Only 20 proteins were found to be differentially expressed with a cut-off value of false discovery rate < 0.1 (q-value) when comparing HFD-S and HFD-P but no differentially expressed proteins were found when LFD was compared with HFD-P or HFD-S. The identified proteins and statistical analysis comparing HFD-S and HFD-P diets are available as a supplementary file S1. We identified a subset of proteins that showed an inverse expression pattern between two high fat diets. These differentially expressed proteins were further classified by gene ontology for their role in biological processes and molecular functions. Mass spectrometry raw data are also available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD020365

Shared Ancestry and Signatures of Recent Selection in Gotland Sheep

Gotland sheep, a breed native to Gotland, Sweden (an island in the Baltic Sea), split from the Gute sheep breed approximately 100 years ago, and since, has probably been crossed with other breeds. This breed has recently gained popularity, due to its pelt quality. This study estimates the shared ancestors and identifies recent selection signatures in Gotland sheep using 600 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotype data. Admixture analysis shows that the Gotland sheep is a distinct breed, but also has shared ancestral genomic components with Gute (similar to 50%), Karakul (similar to 30%), Romanov (similar to 20%), and Fjallnas (similar to 10%) sheep breeds. Two complementary methods were applied to detect selection signatures: A Bayesian population differentiation F-ST and an integrated haplotype homozygosity score (iHS). Our results find that seven significant SNPs (q-value < 0.05) using the F-ST analysis and 55 significant SNPs (p-value < 0.0001) using the iHS analysis. Of the candidate genes that contain significant markers, or are in proximity to them, we identify several belongings to the keratin genes, RXFP2, ADCY1, ENOX1, USF2, COX7A1, ARHGAP28, CRYBB2, CAPNS1, FMO3, and GREB1. These genes are involved in wool quality, polled and horned phenotypes, fertility, twining rate, meat quality, and growth traits. In summary, our results provide shared founders of Gotland sheep and insight into genomic regions maintained under selection after the breed was formed. These results contribute to the detection of candidate genes and QTLs underlying economic traits in sheep

The Alpha 7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Does Not Affect Neonatal Brain Injury

Inflammation plays a central role in the development of neonatal brain injury. The alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) can modulate inflammation and has shown promising results as a treatment target in rodent models of adult brain injury. However, little is known about the role of the α7nAChR in neonatal brain injury. Hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury was induced in male and female C57BL/6 mice, α7nAChR knock-out (KO) mice and their littermate controls on postnatal day (PND) 9–10. C57BL/6 pups received i.p. injections of α7nAChR agonist PHA 568487 (8 mg/kg) or saline once daily, with the first dose given directly after HI. Caspase-3 activity and cytokine mRNA expression in the brain was analyzed 24 h after HI. Motor function was assessed 24 and 48 h after HI, and immunohistochemistry was used to assess tissue loss at 24 h and 7 days after HI and microglial activation 7 days after HI. Activation of α7nAChR with the agonist PHA 568487 significantly decreased CCL2/MCP-1, CCL5/RANTES and IL-6 gene expression in the injured brain hemisphere 24 h after HI compared with saline controls in male, but not female, pups. However, α7nAChR activation did not alter caspase-3 activity and TNFα, IL-1β and CD68 mRNA expression. Furthermore, agonist treatment did not affect motor function (24 or 48 h), neuronal tissue loss (24 h or 7 days) or microglia activation (7 days) after HI in either sex. Knock-out of α7nAChR did not influence neuronal tissue loss 7 days after HI. In conclusion, targeting the α7nAChR in neonatal brain injury shows some effect on dampening acute inflammatory responses in male pups. However, this does not lead to an effect on overall injury outcome

Full genome re-sequencing reveals a novel circadian clock mutation in Arabidopsis

Map based cloning in Arabidopsis thaliana can be a difficult and time-consuming process, specifically if the phenotype is subtle and scoring labour intensive. Here, we have re-sequenced the 120-Mb genome of a novel Arabidopsis clock mutant early bird (ebi-1) in Wassilewskija (Ws-2). We demonstrate the utility of sequencing a backcrossed line in limiting the number of SNPs considered. We identify a SNP in the gene AtNFXL-2 as the likely cause of the ebi-1 phenotype

Circadian clock components control daily growth activities by modulating cytokinin levels and cell division-associated gene expression in <i>Populus</i> trees

Trees are carbon dioxide sinks and major producers of terrestrial biomass with distinct seasonal growth patterns. Circadian clocks enable the coordination of physiological and biochemical temporal activities, optimally regulating multiple traits including growth. To dissect the clock's role in growth, we analysed Populus tremula x P. tremuloides trees with impaired clock function due to down-regulation of central clock components. late elongated hypocotyl (lhy-10) trees, in which expression of LHY1 and LHY2 is reduced by RNAi, have a short free-running period and show disrupted temporal regulation of gene expression and reduced growth, producing 30-40% less biomass than wild-type trees. Genes important in growth regulation were expressed with an earlier phase in lhy-10, and CYCLIN D3 expression was misaligned and arrhythmic. Levels of cytokinins were lower in lhy-10 trees, which also showed a change in the time of peak expression of genes associated with cell division and growth. However, auxin levels were not altered in lhy-10 trees, and the size of the lignification zone in the stem showed a relative increase. The reduced growth rate and anatomical features of lhy-10 trees were mainly caused by misregulation of cell division, which may have resulted from impaired clock function