Where the Ground Answers the Foot: Kerstin Ekman, Ecology, and the Sense of Place in a Globalized World

Kerstin Ekman has emerged as one of the important literary voices in Northern Europe challenging facile definitions of nature and inviting readers to reconsider conceptions of the local. She accomplishes this by using ecological models in her fiction that explore how human subjects exist in interdependent relationships with their environments intertwining space with experience and memory to produce constellations of significance and meaning. The materiality of the space combines with human discourse to create a sense of place situated between immediate and the distant and between the constructed and the found. In particular, her 1993 work, Händelser vid vatten [Blackwater] explores an ecological model of ontology in which all elements are intricately interconnected in myriad ways that question, among other things, the construction of place and the role of both materiality and place in an increasingly mobile, technologically mediated, and globalized world. My purpose is to consider Ekman's model(s) of ecological interdependence in dialogue with the theoretical discussions of space and place that have emerged in recent decades, particularly within the field of ecocriticism. In Ekman's work, the decidedly human propensities for naming, narrating, manipulating, and constructing space are counterbalanced by an experience of materiality and the natural environment's ultimate ambivalence to anthropocentrism. The novel's network of competing narratives, memories, definitions, and confrontation with materiality tend to frustrate the classical modernist epistemological project by lacking clear linearity, diverging, converging, and doubling back on themselves. The effect is to focus readers' attention on how space is produced as a means of understanding the diffuse subject's being in the world as part of complex material and discursive networks as well as between the constructed and the found, the subjective and the objective, the embodied and the abstract, and the local and the global

Where the Ground Answers the Foot: Kerstin Ekman, Ecology, and the Sense of Place in a Globalized World

Kerstin Ekman has emerged as one of the important literary voices in Northern Europe challenging facile definitions of nature and inviting readers to reconsider conceptions of the local. She accomplishes this by using ecological models in her fiction that explore how human subjects exist in interdependent relationships with their environments intertwining space with experience and memory to produce constellations of significance and meaning. The materiality of the space combines with human discourse to create a sense of place situated between immediate and the distant and between the constructed and the found. In particular, her 1993 work, Händelser vid vatten [Blackwater] explores an ecological model of ontology in which all elements are intricately interconnected in myriad ways that question, among other things, the construction of place and the role of both materiality and place in an increasingly mobile, technologically mediated, and globalized world. My purpose is to consider Ekman's model(s) of ecological interdependence in dialogue with the theoretical discussions of space and place that have emerged in recent decades, particularly within the field of ecocriticism. In Ekman's work, the decidedly human propensities for naming, narrating, manipulating, and constructing space are counterbalanced by an experience of materiality and the natural environment's ultimate ambivalence to anthropocentrism. The novel's network of competing narratives, memories, definitions, and confrontation with materiality tend to frustrate the classical modernist epistemological project by lacking clear linearity, diverging, converging, and doubling back on themselves. The effect is to focus readers' attention on how space is produced as a means of understanding the diffuse subject's being in the world as part of complex material and discursive networks as well as between the constructed and the found, the subjective and the objective, the embodied and the abstract, and the local and the global

Trauma-Informed Care in the Emergency Department

Introduction: This project aims to analyze the effectiveness of trauma-informed care (TIC) education on attitudes of registered nurses (RNs) and psychiatric associates (PAs) towards TIC. The purpose of this project was to educate ED (emergency department) RNs and PAs on the effects of trauma and increase attitudes towards implementing a TIC approach to care for mental health (MH) patients in the ED. Method: This project followed a pre–post-survey design with quantitative data. Participants included RNs and PAs newly hired to the ED, and/or if they had no previous TIC education. Data were collected utilizing a 10-question Likert scale survey. Results: A total of 10 ED staff participated in the TIC education and the pre-and post-survey. This study found a significant increase in attitudes towards a TIC approach after the educational sessions, rising from an average of 5.3 to 5.9 (p-value = 0.017). Evaluation: The Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) 10 scale was utilized for pre-and post-assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of the TIC education, measuring the attitudes of RNs and PAs towards TIC; ARTIC-10 includes 10 Likert scale questions that assess the participants’ attitudes towards a TIC approach

Single stage experimental evaluation of variable geometry guide vanes and stator blading. Part 5 - Overall performance for variable camber guide vane and stator B with radial and circumferential inlet flow distortion

Inlet flow distortion effects on single stage variable geometry guide vanes and stator

Synthesis of a Glucuronic Acid-Containing Thioglycoside Trisaccharide Building Block and Its Use in the Assembly of Cryptococcus Neoformans Capsular Polysaccharide Fragments

As part of an ongoing project aimed at identifying protective capsular polysaccharide epitopes for the development of vaccine candidates against the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, the synthesis and glycosylation properties of a naphthalenylmethyl (NAP) orthogonally protected trisaccharide thioglycoside, a common building block for construction of serotype B and C capsular polysaccharide structures, were investigated. Et (benzyl 2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-β-D-glucopyranosyl- uronate)-(1→2)-[2,3,4-tri-O-benzyl-β-D-xylopyranosyl-(1→4)]-6-O-benzyl-3-O-(2-naphthalenylmethyl)-1-thio-α-D-mannopyranoside was prepd. and used both as a donor and an acceptor in glycosylation reactions to obtain spacer equipped hexa- and heptasaccharide structures suitable either for continued elongation or for deprotection and printing onto a glycan array or conjugation to a carrier protein. The glycosylation reactions proceeded with high yields and α-selectivity, proving the viability of the building block approach also for construction of 4-O-xylosyl-contg. C. neoformans CPS structures

Single stage experimental evaluation of variable geometry guide vanes and stator blading. Part 4 - Data and performance for variable camber guide vanes and stator B

Data and performance for variable camber guide vane and stator

Bedömning på systemnivå - En komparativ studie av stegsystemet i språk i den svenska skolan och språknivåer i Europarådets Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

In the early 1970’s, the Council of Europe commenced work that aimed at identifying levels of language learning in a transparent and generally applicable way. The project resulted in the definition of six cardinal levels of competence according to a descriptive model called the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This made a strong and lasting impact and the CEFR concept is now being employed both in Europe and beyond as an important tool in the communication about goals and activities in language teaching and assessment. The highly influential work inspired the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) to transpose the curricular goals for languages into an approximate CEFR model encompassing 7 levels, or stages (steg), which would thereby, among other things, enable comparison of features of language education across cultural and national boundaries.This article describes a previously unpublished study that investigated the conceptual relationship between the 7 stages of language ability laid out in Swedish school curricula and the 6-level CEFR system (Oscarson 2002). Against the background of the increasingly strong interest in the latter system, the purpose of the article is to update and review the analytical procedure and the results of this study. A text analytics method for stepwise comparison of the systems was devised and used in the alignment. Areas of competence were matched for content, and descriptions of abilities in the Swedish curricula close in meaning to descriptors in the CEFR system were identified. Conclusions were drawn about the interrelationships that exist between the systems and points on the two scales. The results indicate where any given stage in a Swedish language curriculum is located on the CEFR scale. The general conditions for the work undertaken, as well as possible further research, are discussed

Experimental evaluation of a honeycomb rotor shroud configuration to improve the stall margin of a 0.5 hub-tip ratio single-stage compressor. Volume 1 - Data and performance report

Experimental data and performance of honeycomb rotor shroud configuration to improve stall margin of 0.5 hub tip ratio single stage compresso

Synthesis of fucose derivatives with thiol motifs towards suicide inhibition of helicobacter pylori

The syntheses of six thiol-exhibiting monosaccharides towards suicide inhibition of Helicobacter pylori are reported. Blood group Antigen Binding Adhesin (BabA), a bacterial membrane-bound lectin, binds to human ABO and Lewis b blood group structures displayed on the surface of host epithelial cells. Crystal structures of the carbohydrate-recognition domain revealed a conserved disulfide bonded loop that anchors a critical fucose residue in these blood group structures. Disruption of this loop by N-acetylcysteine results in reduced BabA-mediated adherence to human gastric tissue sections and attenuated virulence in Lewis b-expressing transgenic mice. With a view of creating specific inhibitors of the lectin, we designed and successfully synthesised six fucose-derived compounds with thiol motifs to engage in a thiol-disulfide exchange with this disulfide bond of BabA and form a glycan-lectin disulfide linkage. Branching and extending the fucose backbone with 2- and 3-carbon thiol motifs delivered a range of candidates to be tested for biological activity against BabA