Reluctant victims into challengers - narratives of a Kurdish political generation in diaspora in Sweden

"The present thesis deals with questions of how national identities are created and maintained in diasporic settings. More precisely, it concerns how the Kurdish national identities are constructed and are maintained in a political generation of Kurds who are residing in Sweden. In some respects, their stories are shared by many other people. Over and over again in history it has happened that generations take shape that resist the political and social conditions of their time, actively take part in contemporary social processes, and resist and organize protests politically and symbolically. Their repertoire of actions can be considered as representing responses to overall historical and social processes, and as challenging and aspiring to change existing conditions in society.

Methodology for developing reduced reaction mechanisms, and their use in combustion simulations

Combustion, present in a vast majority of energy and material production as well as in transportation, represents a foundation of our modern society. To improve and optimize the applications relying on combustion demand a high level of knowledge, and an ability to simulate the combustion process. To do so three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) combustion simulations can be used, where a reaction mechanism is used for describing the chemical process. The aim of this thesis is to develop more accurate and compact reaction mechanisms using a new development technique, and to implement these reaction mechanisms into CFD simulations. Because of the high computational cost associated with using reaction mechanisms the new development technique aim at creating reaction mechanisms that balances predictability and computational cost as effciently as possible. Previous cheaper, simplerreaction mechanisms are often unable to capture key flame parameters, hence compromising the final CFD simulation results. The new, more chemically correct reaction mechanisms presented in this thesis enables the modelling of a wider array of flame parameters, without demanding a too high computational cost. The development technique builds on the idea of dividing thechemistry into sections, or blocks. The chemical complexity of each individual block depends on its importance to the overall combustion process. By individualizing the chemistry of each block only the most important species and reactions can be included, optimizing the size and predictability. By combining several blocks a complete reaction mechanism can then be produced. With the use of the newly developed improved reaction mechanisms in combustionCFD flame parameters such as flame position, decomposition and final products, ignition time, burning velocity, flame-flame interaction and temperature and pressure distributions can all be improved compared to if simpler reaction mechanisms are used

Reluctant Victims into Challengers : Narratives of a Kurdish Political Generation in Diaspora in Sweden

This thesis concerns a sociological analysis on the role of generations in the processes of the construction of national identities, and long-distance nationalism in diasporic settings. The empirical case taken is a political generation of Kurds from Turkey who once arrived in Sweden as political refugees. The primary aim of the thesis is to study how national identities are constructed and maintained in the political generation of interest here. Twenty-three men and women who arrived in Sweden in the years surrounding the military coup of 1980 have been interviewed. They are all from Turkey and have all been involved in the Kurdish resistance during the 1960s and/or 1970s. Theoretically the thesis draws on the concepts of sociological generation, diaspora and long-distance nationalism. The analysis contained herein adresses questions of how Kurdish national identities of this political generation are constructed and maintained in a diasporic setting. Using a narrative approach the thesis demonstrates how competing stories together form a complex and intricate narrative. The stories are both backward- and forward-looking, articulating different experiences of suffering, strength, emancipation and challenges. The backward-looking stories are on the one hand associated with experiences of political unrest, violence and denial. On the other hand these stories articulate senses of idyllisation, displacement and longing for a homeland lost. These are the stories of a defeated political generation and fit into the dominant diaspora victimisation narrative. The forward-looking stories concentrate on the subjects efforts in developing practices and strategies in their present lives in diasporic settings. In Sweden they have continued to commit themselves to the Kurdish cause. Gradually new political strategies developed and many of the interviewees became engaged in transnational networks. The forward-looking stories indicate that the generation has come to challenge the dominant diaspora victim narrative. Simultaneously, however, their their position as a defeated political generation was challenged. The results also point to the fact that national identities are complex and changing

Model-based software process improvement

The activities of a field test site for the Software Engineering Institute's software process definition project are discussed. Products tested included the improvement model itself, descriptive modeling techniques, the CMM level 2 framework document, and the use of process definition guidelines and templates. The software process improvement model represents a five stage cyclic approach for organizational process improvement. The cycles consist of the initiating, diagnosing, establishing, acting, and leveraging phases

In vivo detection of lamellocytes in Drosophila melanogaster.

Drosophila has recently become a powerful model organism for studies of innate immunity. The cellular elements of innate immunity in Drosophila, the hemocytes, have been characterized by morphological criteria, molecular markers, and cell-type-specific immunological markers. Here we suggest that an MiET1 GFP-reporter element insertion in the untranslated region of a gene (l1-atilla) - expressed in a subset of hemocytes, the lamellocytes - allows in vivo investigations of lamellocyte differentiation and facilitates genetic screens

Reluctant victims into challengers - narratives of a Kurdish political generation in diaspora in Sweden

"The present thesis deals with questions of how national identities are created and maintained in diasporic settings. More precisely, it concerns how the Kurdish national identities are constructed and are maintained in a political generation of Kurds who are residing in Sweden. In some respects, their stories are shared by many other people. Over and over again in history it has happened that generations take shape that resist the political and social conditions of their time, actively take part in contemporary social processes, and resist and organize protests politically and symbolically. Their repertoire of actions can be considered as representing responses to overall historical and social processes, and as challenging and aspiring to change existing conditions in society.

Cell lineage tracing reveals the plasticity of the hemocyte lineages and of the hematopoietic compartments in Drosophila melanogaster

Much of our knowledge on hematopoiesis, hematopoietic compartments, hematopoietic cell lineages and immunity has been derived from studies on the vertebrate immune system. The sophisticated innate immunity of insects, the phylogenetic conservation and the power of Drosophila genetics allowed the investigation of immune cell (hemocyte) lineage relationships in Drosophila melanogaster. The development of the hemocyte lineages in Drosophila is a result of a precisely regulated succession of intracellular and intercellular events, though the nature and extent of these interactions are not known. We describe here a cell lineage tracing system set up to analyze the development of hemocyte lineages and functionally distinct hemocyte subsets. This system allowed us to distinguish two major embryonic hemocyte lineages, the crq and Dot lineages, in two, physically separated compartments, the embryonic macrophages and the embryonic lymph gland. We followed the fate and development of these lineages in the construction of the larval hematopoietic compartments and during the cell-mediated immune response, the encapsulation reaction. Our results revealed the considerable plasticity and concerted action of the hematopoietic compartments and the hemocyte lineages in the development of the innate immune system and in the course of the cell-mediated immune response in Drosophila

Investigations of microwave stimulation of a turbulent low-swirl flame

Irradiating a flame by microwave radiation is one of several plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) technologies that can be used to modify the combustion chemical kinetics in order to improve flame-stability and to delay lean blow-out. One practical implication is that engines may be able to operate with leaner fuel mixtures and have an improved fuel flexibility capability including biofuels. In addition, this technology may assist in reducing thermoacoustic instabilities that may severely damage the engine and increase emission production. To examine microwave-assisted combustion a combined experimental and computational study of microwave-assisted combustion is performed for a lean, turbulent, swirl-stabilized, stratified flame at atmospheric conditions. The objectives are to demonstrate that the technology increases both the laminar and turbulent flame speeds, and modifies the chemical kinetics, enhancing the flame-stability at lean mixtures. The study combines experimental investigations using hydroxyl (OH) and formaldehyde (CH2O) Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and numerical simulations using finite rate chemistry Large Eddy Simulations (LES). The reaction mechanism is based on a methane (CH4)-air skeletal mechanism expanded with sub-mechanisms for ozone, singlet oxygen, chemionization, electron impact dissociation, ionization and attachment. The experimental and computational results show similar trends, and are used to demonstrate and explain some significant aspects of microwave-enhanced combustion. Both simulation and experimental studies are performed close to lean blow off conditions. In the simulations, the flame is gradually subjected to increasing reduced electric field strengths, resulting in a wider flame that stabilizes nearer to the burner nozzle. Experiments are performed at two equivalence ratios, where the leaner case absorbs up to more than 5% of the total flame power. Data from experiments reveal trends similar to simulated results with increased microwave absorption

Characterization of a Lamellocyte Transcriptional Enhancer Located within the misshapen Gene of Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila has emerged as an excellent model system in which to study cellular and genetic aspects of hematopoiesis. Under normal developmental conditions and in wild-type genetic backgrounds, Drosophila possesses two types of blood cells, crystal cells and plasmatocytes. Upon infestation by a parasitic wasp or in certain altered genetic backgrounds, a third hemocyte class called the lamellocyte becomes apparent. Herein we describe the characterization of a novel transcriptional regulatory module, a lamellocyte-active enhancer of the misshapen gene. This transcriptional control sequence appears to be inactive in all cell types of the wild-type larva, including crystal cells and plasmatocytes. However, in lamellocytes induced by wasp infestation or by particular genetic conditions, the enhancer is activated and it directs reporter GFP or DsRed expression exclusively in lamellocytes. The lamellocyte control region was delimited to a 140-bp intronic sequence that contains an essential DNA recognition element for the AP-1 transcription factor. Additionally, mutation of the kayak gene encoding the dFos subunit of AP-1 led to a strong suppression of lamellocyte production in tumorous larvae. As misshapen encodes a protein kinase within the Jun N-terminal kinase signaling pathway that functions to form an active AP-1 complex, the lamellocyte-active enhancer likely serves as a transcriptional target within a genetic auto-regulatory circuit that promotes the production of lamellocytes in immune-challenged or genetically- compromised animals