Förebilda och utveckla teknik i gitarrundervisningen - strategier och förhållningssätt: En kvalitativ intervjustudie med fyra gitarrpedagoger från gymnasiets estetiska program

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka gitarrlärares val av strategier samt förhållningsätt till att utveckla och förebilda gitarrteknik i gitarrämnet på gymnasiet. Undersökningen har sin utgångspunkt i elgitarrundervisningen på det svenska gymnasiets estetiska program med inriktning musik. Som teoretisk bakgrund finns tidigare forskning, relaterad till olika aspekter av förebildandet som behandlas i studien. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod, där intervju har använts för datainsamling. Fyra gitarrpedagoger verksamma på olika musikestetiska program deltog i studien. Resultatet visar att dessa gitarrlärare i sitt förebildande möter en stor variation av genrer och tekniker, vilket innebär att gitarrlärarna ibland behöver välja olika strategier för att möta upp elevens önskemål. Studien visar även att gitarrlärarna använder olika strategier för att utveckla de speltekniska färdigheterna hos eleven, samt förebildar teknik med en lyhördhet inför den konstnärliga aspekten av ämnet genom att ge eleven flera alternativ på speltekniska lösningar. Studiens resultat diskuteras utifrån uppsatsens teoretiska bakgrund och tidigare forskning.Title: Teaching and developing technique in guitar teaching – Strategies and approaches. A qualitative interview study with four guitarteachers at the upper secondary aesthetic music program of Sweden. The purpose of this study is to investigate guitar teachers' selection of strategies and approaches to developing and teaching guitar technique in the guitar courses at upper secondary school. The investigation was based on the electric guitar teaching at the Swedish upper secondary aesthetic music program. As a theoretical background, litterature and previous research related to various aspects of teaching strategies was chosen. The study is based upon qualitative research as method, where interviews were used for data collection. Four guitar teachers from different musical aesthetic programs participated in the study. The results show that the guitar teachers encounter a wide variety of genres and techniques in their teaching, which means that they sometimes need to choose different strategies to meet the students needs. The study also shows that the guitar teachers use different strategies to develop the technique skills of the student, and in their teaching of guitar technique have a sensitivity to the artistic aspect of the subject by giving students several options of techniques. The results of the study are discussed from the theoretical background and previous research

OmaStadi budgeting game - An evaluation framework for working towards more inclusive participation through design games

Today, the notion of participatory budgeting has been implemented in more than 1500 cities worldwide. In Finland, the City of Helsinki’s new participatory budgeting process, OmaStadi, opens up an annual budget of 4.4 million euros to implement proposals suggested by citizens. For this process, the city has developed a design game, the OmaStadi game, to facilitate these proposals. The main goal of the game is to make participation in OmaStadi more inclusive. Therefore, it is designed to support qualities such as equal participation, improved discussion, creativity, citizen learning, and city perception. The fact that the game is specifically designed to be played by citizens as part of a participatory budgeting process, makes it among the first of its kind in the world. Thus, research into its impact are consequently unique. This thesis evaluates the OmaStadi game’s impact on the overall inclusiveness of the first year of participatory budgeting. This is done using a constructive and learning-oriented approach that focuses on the challenges (limiting factors), strengths (enabling factors), and achievements (impact) of the game. Research data are collected through qualitative interviews with five civil servants in charge of facilitating OmaStadi, the main designer of the game, and four of the participating citizens. The impact of the game is analysed using five identified goals and subsequently examined using three democratic criteria for evaluating participatory processes: participation (inclusion), political equality, and quality of deliberation. The evaluation results are then used to develop a broader evaluation framework with guidelines for how to plan, implement, and analyse further evaluation of the OmaStadi game. The research findings indicate that the game seemingly supports the overall inclusiveness of the broader budgeting process. Further, it contributes to making the gameplay, discussion, and idea development more equal for the citizens. Lastly, the game was seen to strengthen the discussion between citizens, improve the creativity of these, and enhance the overall quality of their proposals. However, in terms of quality of deliberation, high deliberative quality seems hindered by certain players’ strong attachment to their own ideas or tendency to give away their power very easily

Characterization of PvuRts1I endonuclease as a tool to investigate genomic 5–hydroxymethylcytosine

In mammalian genomes a sixth base, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC), is generated by enzymatic oxidation of 5-methylcytosine (mC). This discovery has raised fundamental questions about the functional relevance of hmC in mammalian genomes. Due to their very similar chemical structure, discrimination of the rare hmC against the far more abundant mC is technically challenging and to date no methods for direct sequencing of hmC have been reported. Here, we report on a purified recombinant endonuclease, PvuRts1I, which selectively cleaves hmC-containing sequences. We determined the consensus cleavage site of PvuRts1I as hmCN11–12/N9–10G and show first data on its potential to interrogate hmC patterns in mammalian genomes

Insect peptide metchnikowin confers on barley a selective capacity for resistance to fungal ascomycetes pathogens

The potential of metchnikowin, a 26-amino acid residue proline-rich antimicrobial peptide synthesized in the fat body of Drosophila melanogaster was explored to engineer disease resistance in barley against devastating fungal plant pathogens. The synthetic peptide caused strong in vitro growth inhibition (IC50 value ∼1 μM) of the pathogenic fungus Fusarium graminearum. Transgenic barley expressing the metchnikowin gene in its 52-amino acid pre-pro-peptide form under the control of the inducible mannopine synthase (mas) gene promoter from the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens displayed enhanced resistance to powdery mildew as well as Fusarium head blight and root rot. In response to these pathogens, metchnikowin accumulated in plant apoplastic space, specifying that the insect signal peptide is functional in monocotyledons. In vitro and in vivo tests revealed that the peptide is markedly effective against fungal pathogens of the phylum Ascomycota but, clearly, less active against Basidiomycota fungi. Importantly, germination of the mutualistic basidiomycete mycorrhizal fungus Piriformospora indica was affected only at concentrations beyond 50 μM. These results suggest that antifungal peptides from insects are a valuable source for crop plant improvements and their differential activities toward different phyla of fungi denote a capacity for insect peptides to be used as selective measures on specific plant diseases

Millimeter-Wave Photonics: Signal Sources and Transmission Links

With the use of higher and higher frequencies in a number of current and future wireless millimeter-wave applications it is beneficial to use photonics for several reasons. The use of optical fibers is an advantageous way to transport millimeter-waves in terms of loss, mechanical flexibility, weight, and insensitivity to electromagnetic interference. Photonics can also be used for analog applications such as signal generation and signal processing of millimeter-waves, as well as in high-capacity wireless communication networks, referred to as radio-over-fiber. In this thesis, novel techniques for signal generation and data transmission using photonics are presented. The techniques for millimeter-wave signal generation include optical phase modulators for harmonic frequency generation and the optical nonlinear phenomenon four-wave-mixing for frequency multiplication in the optical domain. Different setups are used for generation of millimeter-wave carriers at 40 GHz utilizing the polarization properties of an optical phase modulator. The millimeter-wave carrier is created from signals at 10 GHz and the quality of the 40 GHz carrier is mainly determined by the original source. This principle is then further refined into an opto-electronic oscillator. Harmonic frequencies were extracted and carriers up to 60 GHz were created. A six-fold frequency multiplication is presented based on carrier suppression technique and optical four-wave mixing. This technique is scalable to very high frequencies, and the potential is demonstrated with a 6.7 GHz input and 40 GHz output. Furthermore, analog processing of millimeter-waves such as filtering or phase delaying is investigated in the optical domain with the use of fiber Bragg gratings. The concept of radio-over-fiber is demonstrated in this thesis using a high bit-rate data pattern modulating a 40 GHz millimeter-wave carrier downlink from central station to base station. The benefits of using a centralized approach are that expensive and sensitive equipment could be located in the central station, in a less hostile environment, and also be shared by a number of connected base stations. The overall cost can thereby be reduced. Aspects of millimeter-waves transported over fiber such as the impact of chromatic dispersion are investigated and successful data transmission with data rates of up to 2.5 Gbit/s is demonstrated over 44 km fiber

Generation, Modulation, and Detection of Signals in Microwave Photonic Systems

This thesis deals with the use of photonic technology in microwave and millimeter-wave applications. The two major parts of this work have been techniques for transmission and signal generation. The transmission of analog microwave signals over optical fiber is known as radio-over-fiber and utilizes the advantages of the optical fiber in terms of loss, size, weight, cost and immunity to electromagnetic interference. In this thesis, several techniques are presented for generation and modulation of dispersion tolerant millimeter-wave signals, in order to avoid power fading induced by chromatic dispersion. We have demonstrated systems operating with 40 GHz millimeter-wave signals transmitted over optical fiber up to 44 km with 2.5 Gb/s data, including a short range wireless transmission. Furthermore, multiplexed modulation and simultaneous transmission over optical fiber of microwave and millimeter-wave signals are presented, and all-optical demultiplexing using fiber Bragg gratings are successfully demonstrated.Subcarrier modulation can be used in high bit rate optical communication systems in order to send multilevel data in a simple manner, considering the optical link as a "black box" with electrical input and output. A new concept for generating modulated subcarrier signals using binary digital electronics with up to 16-PSK modulation at 2.5 Gsymbols/s is presented.The performance of our in-house fabricated unitraveling-carrier photodiodes (UTC-PD) and a commercial PIN-PD is compared in the context of an analog link requiring high carrier-to-noise ratio and low distortion. We have found that the benefits of using a UTC-PD is mainly its superior spurious-free dynamic range.The generation of millimeter-wave signals is important for applications, where high frequency local oscillators are used, e.g. in antenna arrays. Using nonlinear characteristics or phenomena of photonic technology, millimeter-waves can be generated which have frequencies several times higher than the original electricalsignal. Different techniques for harmonic signal generation are presented including harmonic frequency generation using an optical phase modulator, an optoelectronic oscillator, optical four-wave mixing or chirped pulse mixing

Millimeter-Wave Photonics: Signal Sources and Transmission Links

With the use of higher and higher frequencies in a number of current and future wireless millimeter-wave applications it is beneficial to use photonics for several reasons. The use of optical fibers is an advantageous way to transport millimeter-waves in terms of loss, mechanical flexibility, weight, and insensitivity to electromagnetic interference. Photonics can also be used for analog applications such as signal generation and signal processing of millimeter-waves, as well as in high-capacity wireless communication networks, referredto as radio-over-fiber.In this thesis, novel techniques for signal generation and data transmission using photonics are presented. The techniques for millimeter-wave signal generation include optical phase modulators for harmonic frequency generation and the optical nonlinear phenomenon four-wave-mixing for frequency multiplication in the optical domain. Differentsetups are used for generation of millimeter-wave carriers at 40 GHz utilizing the polarization properties of an optical phase modulator. The millimeter-wave carrier is created from signals at 10 GHz and the quality of the 40 GHz carrier is mainly determined by the original source. This principle is then further refined into an opto-electronic oscillator. Harmonic frequencies were extracted and carriers up to 60 GHz were created. A six-fold frequency multiplication is presented based on carrier suppression technique and optical four-wave mixing. This technique is scalable to very high frequencies, and the potential is demonstrated with a 6.7 GHz input and 40 GHz output. Furthermore, analog processing of millimeter-waves such as filtering or phase delaying is investigated in the optical domain with the use of fiber Bragg gratings. The concept of radio-over-fiber is demonstrated in this thesis using a high bit-rate data pattern modulating a 40 GHz millimeter-wave carrier downlink from central station to base station. The benefits of using a centralized approach are that expensive and sensitive equipment could be located in the central station, in a less hostile environment, and also be shared by a number of connected base stations. The overall cost can thereby be reduced. Aspects of millimeter-waves transported over fiber such as the impact of chromatic dispersion are investigated and successful data transmission with data rates of up to 2.5 Gbit/s is demonstrated over 44 km fiber

Generation, Modulation, and Detection of Signals in Microwave Photonic Systems

This thesis deals with the use of photonic technology in microwave and millimeter-wave applications. The two major parts of this work have been techniques for transmission and signal generation. The transmission of analog microwave signals over optical fiber is known as radio-over-fiber and utilizes the advantages of the optical fiber in terms of loss, size, weight, cost and immunity to electromagnetic interference. In this thesis, several techniques are presented for generation and modulation of dispersion tolerant millimeter-wave signals, in order to avoid power fading induced by chromatic dispersion. We have demonstrated systems operating with 40 GHz millimeter-wave signals transmitted over optical fiber up to 44 km with 2.5 Gb/s data, including a short range wireless transmission. Furthermore, multiplexed modulation and simultaneous transmission over optical fiber of microwave and millimeter-wave signals are presented, and all-optical demultiplexing using fiber Bragg gratings are successfully demonstrated.Subcarrier modulation can be used in high bit rate optical communication systems in order to send multilevel data in a simple manner, considering the optical link as a "black box" with electrical input and output. A new concept for generating modulated subcarrier signals using binary digital electronics with up to 16-PSK modulation at 2.5 Gsymbols/s is presented.The performance of our in-house fabricated unitraveling-carrier photodiodes (UTC-PD) and a commercial PIN-PD is compared in the context of an analog link requiring high carrier-to-noise ratio and low distortion. We have found that the benefits of using a UTC-PD is mainly its superior spurious-free dynamic range.The generation of millimeter-wave signals is important for applications, where high frequency local oscillators are used, e.g. in antenna arrays. Using nonlinear characteristics or phenomena of photonic technology, millimeter-waves can be generated which have frequencies several times higher than the original electricalsignal. Different techniques for harmonic signal generation are presented including harmonic frequency generation using an optical phase modulator, an optoelectronic oscillator, optical four-wave mixing or chirped pulse mixing