Shadows and Silences in Göran Rosenberg’s Memoir: Jewish Postmemory in the Swedish Welfare State

This article, winner of the 2022 Marna Feldt Graduate Publication Award, explores the concept of postmemory in relation to Sweden’s cultural memory of World War II. Through an analysis of Göran Rosenberg’s memoir "Ett kort uppehåll på vägen från Auschwitz" (2012), translated as "A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz," this article investigates how the representation of postmigrant identity and belonging relates to revisionist historiography regarding Sweden’s positionality during World War II. Furthermore, this article illuminates how exploring the postmemory trauma of the children of Holocaust survivors is relevant to the current discourse in Sweden’s contemporary transcultural society.Cet article, gagnant du Prix Marna Feldt de publication pour diplomé [graduate], explore le concept de post-mémoire dans la mémoire culturelle de la Seconde Guerre mondiale en Suède. À travers une analyse du mémoire de Göran Rosenberg “Ett kort uppehåll på vägen från Auschwitz” (2012), au titre anglais “A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz” [Un court arrêt au retour d’Auschwitz], cet article examine comment la représentation de l’identité et de l’appartenance post-migratoires se rapportent à l’historiographie révisionnistesur la position de la Suède durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. De plus, cet article illumine comment l’exploration des traumatismes post-mémoriels des enfants de survivants de l’Holocauste est importante à l’heure actuelle dans la société transculturelle de Suède

Regulation of Islet Function by the Neuropeptide PACAP

It is known that parasympathetic, sympathetic and sensory nerves innervate the islets and that these nerves harbor both classical neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. However, the neural influence on islet hormone release is complex and not yet fully understood A recently discovered pancreatic neuropeptide is pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP). The aim of this thesis was to establish the role of PACAP in the regulation of islet function by using a variety of cell biological techniques in isolated islets and insulin producing clonal cells, in combination with in vivo studies in mice and humans. PACAP was localized to pancreatic nerves within the islets, and two of the three established PACAP receptors were expressed in islet cells. PACAP stimulated insulin secretion from isolated mouse and rat islets, as well as in the insulin producing clonal cell lines HIT-T15 and RINm5F. This action was accompanied by formation of cAMP and increases in cytoplasmic Ca2+ and Na+ and dependent on the extracellular concentrations of glucose, Ca2+ and Na+. Furthermore, addition of specific PACAP antisera to isolated rat islets inhibited glucose-induced insulin secretion. In anesthetized mice, injection of glucose together with PACAP27 increased plasma insulin levels, without affecting plasma glucose levels compared to controls injected with glucose alone. Plasma glucagon and plasma adrenaline levels were increased by injection of PACAP. By analyzing the data according to the minimal model technique, PACAP reduced insulin sensitivity without altering glucose effectiveness. Injection of a specific PACAP receptor antagonist in anesthetized mice prior to presentation of a gastric glucose gavage reduced plasma insulin levels compared to controls given saline. Finally, infusion of PACAP27 in humans increased circulating insulin and glucagon levels, without altering glucose elimination rate. These results shows that PACAP is exclusively a neuropeptide in the islets, that the insulinotropic action of PACAP is mediated by activation of adenylate cyclase in combination with cytoplasmic changes in Ca2+ and Na+, and that PACAP contributes to glucose- and meal-induced insulin secretion. This suggests that PACAP is a neuropeptide in the endocrine pancreas of physiological importance for the regulation of islet function

Smärta, sorg och ett nytt liv : En litteraturöversikt över personers upplevelse av att leva med reumatoid artrit

Bakgrund: Reumatoid artrit, RA, är en systemisk, autoimmun och livslång sjukdom. Runt 2 000 personer nydiagnostiseras i Sverige varje år. Kvinnor drabbas i högre grad än män.  Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva personers upplevelse av att leva med reumatoid artrit.  Metod:En litteraturöversikt baserad på 14 artiklar med kvalitativ ansats.  Resultat:RA påverkar hela livet, fysiskt, psykiskt och socialt. Den är högst individuell, orsakar smärta, förlust och sorg. Vardagsliv och relationer förändras och personen med RA tvingas till anpassning och förändring. Många behöver hjälp av familjen och samhället. RA innebär också en livslång behandling och kontakt med vården.  Slutsatser:Vid omvårdnaden av personer med RA, kan sjuksköterskan genom ett personcentrerat förhållningssätt, fånga upp varje persons unika upplevelse av livet och sjukdomen. Det är också viktigt att vara medveten om att upplevelsen av RA kan variera från en dag till en annan och att ta personen på allvar. Sjuksköterskan kan också ha en viktig roll i att upptäcka sjukdomen.    Nyckelord:Kronisk sjukdom,livsomställning, personcentrerad omvårdnad, reumatoid artrit, sorgMain title: Pain, sorrow and a new life Subtitle:A literature review on people's experience of living with rheumatoid arthritis   Background:Rheumatoid arthritis, RA, is a systemic, chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease. Every year about 2 000 persons are diagnosed with RA in Sweden. Women are more affected than men are.  Aim:The aim was to describe people’s experience of living with rheumatoid arthritis.  Method:A literature review containing 14 articles with a qualitative approach.  Result:RA greatly impacts one’s life, physically, mentally and socially. The disease is highly individual, and causes pain, loss and grief. Everyday life and relations changes and the person with RA is forced to adaption and adjustment. Many people need support from family and society. RA also means a life-long treatment and contact with the healthcare system.  Conclusion:With a person-centered care approach, the nurse is able to capture every person's unique experience of life and the disease, when caring for a person with RA. It is also important to be aware that the experience of RA can vary from one day to another and to take the persons own experience seriously. To detect RA, the nurse can play an important role.   Keywords: Chronic disease, life adjustment, person-centered care, rheumatiod arthritis, sorrow

PACAP stimulates insulin secretion but inhibits insulin sensitivity in mice

Although pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) stimulates insulin secretion, its net influence on glucose homeostasis in vivo has not been established. We therefore examined the action of PACAP-27 and PACAP-38 on insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, and glucose disposal as derived from the minimal model of glucose disappearance during an intravenous glucose tolerance test in anesthetized mice. PACAP-27 and PACAP-38 markedly and equipotently potentiated glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, with a half-maximal effect at 33 pmol/kg. After PACAP-27 or PACAP-38 (1.3 nmol/kg), the acute (1–5 min) insulin response was 3.8 ± 0.4 nmol/l (PACAP-27) and 3.3 ± 0.3 nmol/l (PACAP-38), respectively, vs. 1.4 ± 0.1 nmol/l after glucose alone (P < 0.001), and the total area under the curve for insulin (AUCinsulin) was potentiated by 60% (P < 0.001). In contrast, PACAP-27 and PACAP-38 reduced the insulin sensitivity index (SI) [0.23 ± 0.04 10-4 min-1/(pmol/l) for PACAP-27 and 0.29 ± 0.06 10-4 min-1/(pmol/l) for PACAP-38 vs. 0.46 ± 0.02 10-4 min-1/(pmol/l) for controls (P < 0.01)]. Furthermore, PACAP-27 or PACAP-38 did not affect glucose elimination determined as glucose half-time or the glucose elimination rate after glucose injection or the area under the curve for glucose. Moreover, glucose effectiveness and the global disposition index (AUCinsulin times SI) were not affected by PACAP-27 or PACAP-38. Finally, when given together with glucose, PACAP-27 did not alter plasma glucagon or norepinephrine levels but significantly increased plasma epinephrine levels. We conclude that PACAP, besides its marked stimulation of insulin secretion, also inhibits insulin sensitivity in mice, the latter possibly explained by increased epinephrine. This complex action explains why the peptide does not enhance glucose disposal.

A Photocatalytic Membrane : for Treatment of Pharmaceuticals in Wastewater

Toxic organics, pharmaceuticals and antibiotics are currently only partially or not at all removed from wastewater, as today’s wastewater treatment will only partly degrade those substances. Therefore, those substances will be found in the effluent from wastewater treatment plants and this can be a threat to both human health and aquatic species. Photocatalytic membranes show great promise as a method to combat the challenge of toxic organics in wastewater. The novel photocatalytic membrane developed in the project was shown to photocatalytically decompose organic compounds such as pharmaceutical residues and dyes in both tap water and treated effluent from a membrane bioreactor (MBR) wastewater treatment process. Several parameters affecting the affinity of the pharmaceuticals to the membrane surface, such as the hydrophobicity and pKa of the pharmaceuticals and the pH of the water, were shown to affect the efficacy of the removal. Finally, when irradiated with UV light the photocatalytic membrane showed promise of keeping high flux and reducing downtime by lengthening the cleaning cycle.Photoca

Differences in metal tolerance among strains, populations, and species of marine diatoms – Importance of exponential growth for quantification

Strains of microalgae vary in traits between species and populations due to adaptation or stochastic processes. Traits of individual strains may also vary depending on the acclimatization state and external forces, such as abiotic stress. In this study we tested how metal tolerance differs among marine diatoms at three organizational levels: species, populations, and strains. At the species level we compared two pelagic Baltic Sea diatoms (Skeletonema marinoi and Thalassiosira baltica). We found that the between-species differences in tolerance (EC50) to the biologically active metals (Cu, Co, Ni, and Zn) was similar to that within-species. In contrast, the two species differed significantly in tolerance towards the non-essential metals, Ag (three-fold higher in T. baltica), Pb and Cd (two and three-fold higher in S. marinoi). At the population level, we found evidence that increased tolerance against Cu and Co (17 and 41 % higher EC50 on average, respectively) had evolved in a S. marinoi population subjected to historical mining activity. On a strain level we demonstrate how the growth phase of cultures (i.e., cellular densities above exponential growth) modulated dose-response relationships to Ag, Cd, Co, Cu, and Zn. Specifically, the EC50's were reduced by 10–60 % in non-exponentially growing S. marinoi (strain RO5AC), depending on metal. For the essential metals these differences were often larger than the average differences between the two species and populations. Consequently, without careful experimental design, interactions between nutrient limitation and metal stress may interfere with detection of small, but evolutionary and ecologically important, differences in tolerance between microalgae. To avoid such artifacts, we outline a semi-continuous cultivation approach that maintains, and empirically tests, that exponential growth is achieved. We argue that such an approach is essential to enable comparison of population or strain differences in tolerance using dose-response tests on cultures of microalgae