Reestablishing the joy of reading

This thesis examines teachers’ perspectives and experiences working with extensive reading in the English subject in middle school. In addition, it analyzes how the teachers facilitate reading pleasure in their lessons. The study is based on a questionnaire taken by 56 teachers and six in-depth interviews. Both research methods were conducted on English teachers working in middle schools. I interviewed teachers from two different middle schools to investigate if the teacher’s perspectives varied due to possible school traditions. The results showed that the two schools emphasized extensive reading projects and facilitated reading pleasure differently. One school-centered more on pre-chosen books with attention on the content, while the other school promoted more on self-chosen books, emphasizing the student’s experience. Universal for all the interviewees was the challenge to motivate the students to read entire books. The reason was primarily due to either the students’ attitude towards reading, finding a fitting book for them, or the student’s lack of endurance, mainly when the students chose literature and were given more responsibility for their reading process. Nevertheless, all interviewees saw significant advantages in promoting reading pleasure in middle school. Some even commented that they would love to work more with promoting reading pleasure, but that they lacked ideas on how to motivate students without it feeling like an obligation or work. Based on the findings, I argue that teachers’ perspectives on extensive reading are filtered through their own attitude towards reading, their prior experiences, and their school’s traditions. I hope this thesis will inspire other teachers with tips and ideas on working with extensive reading and reading pleasure in a hopefully life-changing way for their students

Attachment of Salmonella spp. to pork meat

Five strains of Salmonella, one wildtype and four knock-out mutants (the prg, flhDC, yhjH and fliC genes) were investigated based on their probability to attach and subsequently detach from a surface of pork fillet. The attachment followed by detachment was measured and modelled for two different contact times using cells coming from either a planktonic or an immobilized state of growth. The results showed that the probability of detachment generally decreased when the contact time increased and that the highest difference between contact times was achieved when the cells were grown planktonic

Broad host range plasmids can invade an unexpectedly diverse fraction of a soil bacterial community

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this recordConjugal plasmids can provide microbes with full complements of new genes and constitute potent vehicles for horizontal gene transfer. Conjugal plasmid transfer is deemed responsible for the rapid spread of antibiotic resistance among microbes. While broad host range plasmids are known to transfer to diverse hosts in pure culture, the extent of their ability to transfer in the complex bacterial communities present in most habitats has not been comprehensively studied. Here, we isolated and characterized transconjugants with a degree of sensitivity not previously realized to investigate the transfer range of IncP- and IncPromA-type broad host range plasmids from three proteobacterial donors to a soil bacterial community. We identified transfer to many different recipients belonging to 11 different bacterial phyla. The prevalence of transconjugants belonging to diverse Gram-positive Firmicutes and Actinobacteria suggests that inter-Gram plasmid transfer of IncP-1 and IncPromA-type plasmids is a frequent phenomenon. While the plasmid receiving fractions of the community were both plasmid- and donor- dependent, we identified a core super-permissive fraction that could take up different plasmids from diverse donor strains. This fraction, comprising 80% of the identified transconjugants, thus has the potential to dominate IncP- and IncPromA-type plasmid transfer in soil. Our results demonstrate that these broad host range plasmids have a hitherto unrecognized potential to transfer readily to very diverse bacteria and can, therefore, directly connect large proportions of the soil bacterial gene pool. This finding reinforces the evolutionary and medical significances of these plasmids.This work was funded by the Villum Kann Rasmussen Foundation Center of Excellence CREAM (Center for Environmental and Agricultural Microbiology)

Host defence responses in pigs experimentally infected with S. typhimurium

Salmonella Typhimurium may induce persistent infections (organ carriers) in pigs, and healthy carriers seems to be a problem in controling the infection (8). Evasion or disturbance of the host defence responses may be nessesary for establishment of a persistent infection. Functional changes in circulating neutrophils from pigs infected with Salmonella Typhimurium have been demonstrated (1). The aim of the study was to investigate host defence mechanisms in pigs that have cleared the infection, persistently infected pigs and uninfected pigs, studies that may contribute to the explanation of how the carrier-state is established. Phagocytosis and oxidative burst in peripheral blood or cells isolated from peripheral blood were investigated in three inoculation experiments

Rapid and sustained environmental responses to global warming: the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum in the eastern North Sea

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ∼ 55.9 Ma) was a period of rapid and sustained global warming associated with significant carbon emissions. It coincided with the North Atlantic opening and emplacement of the North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP), suggesting a possible causal relationship. Only a very limited number of PETM studies exist from the North Sea, despite its ideal position for tracking the impact of both changing climate and NAIP activity. Here we present sedimentological, mineralogical, and geochemical proxy data from Denmark in the eastern North Sea, exploring the environmental response to the PETM. An increase in the chemical index of alteration and a kaolinite content up to 50 % of the clay fraction indicate an influx of terrestrial input shortly after the PETM onset and during the recovery, likely due to an intensified hydrological cycle. The volcanically derived zeolite and smectite minerals comprise up to 36 % and 90 % of the bulk and clay mineralogy respectively, highlighting the NAIP's importance as a sediment source for the North Sea and in increasing the rate of silicate weathering during the PETM. X-Ray fluorescence element core scans also reveal possible hitherto unknown NAIP ash deposition both prior to and during the PETM. Geochemical proxies show that an anoxic to sulfidic environment persisted during the PETM, particularly in the upper half of the PETM body with high concentrations of molybdenum (MoEF > 30), uranium (UEF up to 5), sulfur (∼ 4 wt %), and pyrite (∼ 7 % of bulk). At the same time, export productivity and organic-matter burial reached its maximum intensity. These new records reveal that negative feedback mechanisms including silicate weathering and organic carbon sequestration rapidly began to counteract the carbon cycle perturbations and temperature increase and remained active throughout the PETM. This study highlights the importance of shelf sections in tracking the environmental response to the PETM climatic changes and as carbon sinks driving the PETM recovery.publishedVersio

Karakteristik af trædepudeforandringer hos økologiske og konventionelle slagtekyllinger

Peasant land tenure in historical perspective Rural societies have no memory. Seasons of their life are very much alike, and peasants do not indulge in record-keeping: only the propertied classes do. Consequently, no-one in Nucşoara or in Scorniceşti can look back beyond their grandparents’ generation, and when they do the resulting picture is rather blurred. The oral history of Romanian peasantry thus starts with the aftermath of the agrarian reforms of World War I. These were the most compr..

Influence of fractional flow reserve on grafts patency: Systematic review and patient-level meta-analysis.

To investigate the impact of invasive functional guidance for coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) on graft failure. Data on the impact of fractional flow reserve (FFR) in guiding CABG are still limited. Systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis were performed. Primary objective was the risk of graft failure, stratified by FFR. Risk estimates are reported as odds ratios (ORs) derived from the aggregated data using random-effects models. Individual patient data were analyzed using mixed effect model to assess relationship between FFR and graft failure. This meta-analysis is registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020180444). Four prospective studies comprising 503 patients referred for CABG, with 1471 coronaries, assessed by FFR were included. Graft status was available for 1039 conduits at median of 12.0 [IQR 6.6; 12.0] months. Risk of graft failure was higher in vessels with preserved FFR (OR 5.74, 95% CI 1.71-19.29). Every 0.10 FFR units decrease in the coronaries was associated with 56% risk reduction of graft failure (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.59). FFR cut-off to predict graft failure was 0.79. Surgical grafting of coronaries with functionally nonsignificant stenoses was associated with higher risk of graft failure

Simulation aux grandes échelles: instabilités thermo-acoustiques, combustion diphasique et couplages multi-physiques

La combustion turbulente, que ce soit dans des configurations de laboratoire ou dans des configurations réelles industrielles, met en oeuvre un nombre important de physiques fortement couplées: chimie, turbulence, multi-phasique, thermique, etc. Pour répondre aux demandes de plus en plus exigeantes des concepteurs, qui doivent proposer des solutions concurrentielles tout en respectant les contraintes environnementales de bruit et d'émission de polluants, la simulation numérique est devenue incontournable. Plus précisément, la simulation maintenant utilisée comme outil de conception, doit être fiable et précise. Dans le domaine de la combustion turbulente, à fort caractère instationnaire, la Simulation aux Grandes Echelles (SGE) s'est récemment imposée. Cette technique s'est en effet avérée capable de prédire finement le comportement des brûleurs dans des environnements complexes, et permet aujourd'hui d'aborder des problématiques encore mal maîtrisées telles que les instabilités thermo-acoustiques ou la combustion diphasique. On donne ici quelques exemples de problèmes encore ouverts dans ce domaine