60 research outputs found

    A Mythology? For England?

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    It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien said that he wanted to make “a mythology for England”. Well known, but not true. This paper investigates how Tolkien really used the word mythology, and also looks at the relation with England

    Prospects of caching in a distributed digital library

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    Many independent publishers are today offering digital libraries with fulltext archives. In an attempt to provide a single user-interface to a large set of archives, DTVs Article Database Service, offers a consolidatedinterface to a geographically distributed set of archives. While this approach offers a tremendous functional advantage to a user, the delays caused by the network and queuing delays in servers make the user-perceived interactive performance poor. In this paper, we study the prospects of caching articles at the client level as wel as intermediate points as manifested by gateways that implement the interfaces to the many fulltext archives. A central research question is what the nature of the locality is in the user accesses to such a digital library. Based on access logs to drive simulations, we find that client side caching can result in a 20% hitrate. However, at the gateway level, where multiple users may access the same article, the temporal locality is poor and caching is not so relevant. We have also studied whether spatial locality can be exploited by considering to load into cache all articles in an issue, volume, or journal, if a single article is accessed, but found that spatial locality is quite poor

    Scale-up Analysis of Continuous Cross-flow Atomic Layer Deposition Reactor Designs

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    This paper presents the development of a non-dimensional model of a continuous cross-flow atomic layer deposition (ALD) reactor with temporally separated precursor pulsing and a structured model-based methodology for scaling up the substrate dimensions. The model incorporates an ALD gas–surface reaction kinetic mechanism for the deposition of thin ZnO films from Zn(C2H5)2 and H2O precursors that was experimentally validated in our previous work (Holmqvist et al., 2012, 2013a). In order to maintain dynamic similarity, a scaling analysis was applied based on the dimensionless numbers, appearing in non-dimensionalized momentum and species mass conservation equations, that describe the convective laminar flow, mass transfer and heterogeneous reaction. The impact on these dimensionless numbers and, more importantly, the impact on the limit-cycle deposition rate and its relative uniformity was thoroughly investigated when linearly scaling up the substrate dimensions. In the scale-up procedure, the limit-cycle precursor utilization was maximized by means of dynamic optimization, while ensuring that identical deposition profiles were obtained in the scaled-up system. The results presented here demonstrated that the maximum precursor yields were promoted at higher substrate dimensions. Limit-cycle dynamic solutions to the non-dimensionalized model, computed with a collocation discretization in time, revealed that it is a combination of the degree of precursor depletion in the flow direction and the magnitude of the pressure drop across the reactor chamber that governs the extent of the deposition profile non-uniformity. A key finding of this study is the identification of optimal scaling rules for maximizing precursor utilization in the scaled-up system while maintaining fixed absolute growth rate and its relative uniformity

    Dynamic parameter estimation of atomic layer deposition kinetics applied to in situ quartz crystal microbalance diagnostics

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    This paper presents the elaboration of an experimentally validated model of a continuous cross-flow atomic layer deposition (ALD) reactor with temporally separated precursor pulsing encoded in the Modelica language. For the experimental validation of the model, in situ quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) diagnostics was used to yield submonolayer resolution of mass deposition resulting from thin film growth of ZnO from Zn(C2H5)2 and H2O precursors. The ZnO ALD reaction intrinsic kinetic mechanism that was developed accounted for the temporal evolution of the equilibrium fractional surface concentrations of precursor adducts and their transition states for each half-reaction. This mechanism was incorporated into a rigorous model of reactor transport, which comprises isothermal compressible equations for the conservation of mass, momentum and gas-phase species. The physically based model in this way relates the local partial pressures of precursors to the dynamic composition of the growth surface, and ultimately governs the accumulated mass trajectory at the QCM sensor. Quantitative rate information can then be extracted by means of dynamic parameter estimation. The continuous operation of the reactor is described by limit-cycle dynamic solutions and numerically computed using Radau collocation schemes and solved using CasADi's interface to IPOPT. Model predictions of the transient mass gain per unit area of exposed surface QCM sensor, resolved at a single pulse sequence, were in good agreement with experimental data under a wide range of operating conditions. An important property of the limit-cycle solution procedure is that it enables the systematic approach to analyze the dynamic nature of the growth surface composition as a function of process operating parameters. Especially, the dependency of the film growth rate per limit-cycle on the half-cycle precursor exposure dose and the process temperature was thoroughly assessed and the difference between ALD in saturating and in non-saturating film growth conditions distinguished

    Protein synthesis of the pro-inflammatory S100A8/A9 complex in plasmacytoid dendritic cells and cell surface S100A8/A9 on leukocyte subpopulations in systemic lupus erythematosus

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    Introduction: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with chronic or episodic inflammation in many different organ systems, activation of leukocytes and production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The heterodimer of the cytosolic calcium-binding proteins S100A8 and S100A9 (S100A8/A9) is secreted by activated polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) and monocytes and serves as a serum marker for several inflammatory diseases. Furthermore, S100A8 and S100A9 have many pro-inflammatory properties such as binding to Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). In this study we investigated if aberrant cell surface S100A8/A9 could be seen in SLE and if plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) could synthesize S100A8/A9. Methods: Flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and real-time PCR of flow cytometry-sorted cells were used to measure cell surface S100A8/A9, intracellular S100A8/A9 and mRNA levels of S100A8 and S100A9, respectively. Results: Cell surface S100A8/A9 was detected on all leukocyte subpopulations investigated except for T cells. By confocal microscopy, real-time PCR and stimulation assays, we could demonstrate that pDCs, monocytes and PMNs could synthesize S100A8/A9. Furthermore, pDC cell surface S100A8/A9 was higher in patients with active disease as compared to patients with inactive disease. Upon immune complex stimulation, pDCs up-regulated the cell surface S100A8/A9. SLE patients had also increased serum levels of S100A8/A9. Conclusions: Patients with SLE had increased cell surface S100A8/A9, which could be important in amplification and persistence of inflammation. Importantly, pDCs were able to synthesize S100A8/A9 proteins and up-regulate the cell surface expression upon immune complex-stimulation. Thus, S100A8/A9 may be a potent target for treatment of inflammatory diseases such as SLE

    PLURAL GOVERNMENTALITIES : GOVERNING WELFARE FRAUD IN SWEDEN

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    The criminalization of welfare and policing has often been analysed as being indicative of the global rise of a neoliberal political agenda. The current paper examines how governmental power is organized to govern investigators responsible for policing welfare in Sweden. Using empirical illustrations from the Swedish case, it shows how multiple governmental logics are enacted in the context of a broader political will to crack down on welfare fraud. Specifically, it demonstrates how so-called control investigators are tasked to realize a neoconservative agenda. To this end, these investigators are themselves governed using an amalgam of neoliberal and bureaucratic rationalities and technologies. The paper argues that examinations of the articulation of multiple governmental rationalities offer one route for thinking intelligibly about power and criminalization and by extension about the limits of neoliberal rule

    Partnership policing and the dynamics of administrative growth

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    The current article reports findings from a research project on partnership policing in Stockholm, Sweden, to investigate how partnership policing strategies translate into social action. Consideration is given to the ways in which police officers and city employees produce chains of administrative tasks as they navigate their institutional environment and strive to produce legitimacy for partnership policing. More broadly, the findings suggest that the inner mechanisms of a partnership approach to policing are shaped by the self-referential (Eigendynamik) character of administration. The article discusses implications for partnership policing and for the broader literature on policing.Samverkan i det nya polisiÀra landskapet: frÄn strategi till handlin

    The Plural Policing of Fraud : Power and the investigation of insurance and welfare fraud in Sweden

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    There is a vast literature on plural policing and the ways in which non-governmental actors now have and are assuming more responsibility for crime control. This literature argues that the connection between policing and the state is being eroded, questioned and sometimes abandoned in favour of networks in which the state acts as one actor among many others. This thesis examines the Swedish policing of insurance and welfare fraud via an analysis of the ways in which power is organized and articulated by actors in the private insurance industry, and at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and police authority. The three articles included in the thesis contribute to a field that has received comparatively little attention, particularly in Sweden but also internationally. The existing literature has primarily been interested in the control of street-level criminality and the operations of uniformed security actors. Investigation practices in general and the plural policing of white-collar crime in particular have received far less attention. In Sweden, studies of policing are primarily state-centred, and the interactions between the police and other policing actors require further consideration. When examining insurance fraud, scholars have not considered the ways in which the insurance institution controls fraud; instead, this literature focuses on the characteristics of fraudsters. Thus the current thesis furthers our knowledge of a field of policing about which we currently know relatively little. The thesis takes as its general assumption the view that this form of policing is marked by a basic ambiguity between on the one hand being responsibilized and assuming responsibility for crime control, and on the other being responsible for other goals, such as promoting trust in, and the legitimacy and survival of the insurance institution. Existing research suggests that this ambiguity is resolved by simply denying compensation, adjusting premium levels, and cancelling policies or social benefits. My research shows that there is no Swedish exceptionalism in this sense. Based on a Foucauldian understanding of power, the thesis furthers our understanding of how the insurance institution is organized to tolerate fraud. The uncertainty between crime control and additional organizational goals is embedded in attempts to police the policing actors themselves, which is reflected in forces that make the policing of fraud a professional risk for the policing actors. The thesis argues that power relations provide opportunities to ensure that organizational goals are not endangered, while at the same time maintaining the public image that crime is being controlled. In contrast with existing research, the thesis shows that the law and the state – analytical categories that existing research, and particularly post-Foucauldian approaches, tend to reject or avoid – are critical to the plural policing of fraud. It is further suggested that scholars need to pay more attention to the way different technologies of power shape relationships between the actors involved in plural policing and their definitions of their own roles. In particular, scholars need to consider the role of the state and the legal framework in such arrangements. At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p

    The Plural Policing of Fraud : Power and the investigation of insurance and welfare fraud in Sweden

    No full text
    There is a vast literature on plural policing and the ways in which non-governmental actors now have and are assuming more responsibility for crime control. This literature argues that the connection between policing and the state is being eroded, questioned and sometimes abandoned in favour of networks in which the state acts as one actor among many others. This thesis examines the Swedish policing of insurance and welfare fraud via an analysis of the ways in which power is organized and articulated by actors in the private insurance industry, and at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and police authority. The three articles included in the thesis contribute to a field that has received comparatively little attention, particularly in Sweden but also internationally. The existing literature has primarily been interested in the control of street-level criminality and the operations of uniformed security actors. Investigation practices in general and the plural policing of white-collar crime in particular have received far less attention. In Sweden, studies of policing are primarily state-centred, and the interactions between the police and other policing actors require further consideration. When examining insurance fraud, scholars have not considered the ways in which the insurance institution controls fraud; instead, this literature focuses on the characteristics of fraudsters. Thus the current thesis furthers our knowledge of a field of policing about which we currently know relatively little. The thesis takes as its general assumption the view that this form of policing is marked by a basic ambiguity between on the one hand being responsibilized and assuming responsibility for crime control, and on the other being responsible for other goals, such as promoting trust in, and the legitimacy and survival of the insurance institution. Existing research suggests that this ambiguity is resolved by simply denying compensation, adjusting premium levels, and cancelling policies or social benefits. My research shows that there is no Swedish exceptionalism in this sense. Based on a Foucauldian understanding of power, the thesis furthers our understanding of how the insurance institution is organized to tolerate fraud. The uncertainty between crime control and additional organizational goals is embedded in attempts to police the policing actors themselves, which is reflected in forces that make the policing of fraud a professional risk for the policing actors. The thesis argues that power relations provide opportunities to ensure that organizational goals are not endangered, while at the same time maintaining the public image that crime is being controlled. In contrast with existing research, the thesis shows that the law and the state – analytical categories that existing research, and particularly post-Foucauldian approaches, tend to reject or avoid – are critical to the plural policing of fraud. It is further suggested that scholars need to pay more attention to the way different technologies of power shape relationships between the actors involved in plural policing and their definitions of their own roles. In particular, scholars need to consider the role of the state and the legal framework in such arrangements. At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.</p

    Barnens svenska sÄngbok

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