Manual SEAMLESS-IF

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics,

Biocompatibility of a polymer based on Off-Stoichiometry Thiol-Enes + Epoxy (OSTE+) for neural implants.

The flexibility of implantable neural probes has increased during the last 10 years, starting with stiff materials such as silicone to more flexible materials like polyimide. We have developed a novel polymer based on Off-Stoichiometry Thiol-Enes + Epoxy (OSTE+, consisting of a thiol, two allyls, an epoxy resin and two initiators), which is up to 100 times more flexible than polyimide. Since a flexible neural probe should be more biocompatible than a stiff probe, an OSTE+ probe should be more biocompatible than one composed of a more rigid material. We have investigated the toxicity of OSTE+ as well as of OSTE+ that had been incubated in water for a week (OSTE+H2O) using MTT assays with mouse L929 fibroblasts. We found that OSTE+ showed cytotoxicity, but OSTE+H2O did not. Extracts were analyzed using LC-MS and GC-MS in order to identify leaked chemicals

Participatory modelling for the integrated sustainability assessment of water: The World Cellular Model and the MATISSE project

This paper describes the participatory process of developing and implementing a prototype model aimed at supporting the Integrated Sustainability Assessment of water resources and policy options at different scales. The model - called the World Cellular Model (WCM) focuses on the representation of agents’ behaviours and their systemic relationships with their environment. This is achieved by examining the interests, motives, cultural beliefs and structural resources that drive agents’ actions with regard to the use of stocks and flows of water, by looking at the impact of such water behaviours on the environment and on the natural ecosystems at different scales, and by examining in a coevolutionary way the impact of such environmental changes on the behaviours of agents. The WC model takes a ‘total system’, multi-scale, agent perspective. That is, agents operate in a single interrelated system in which each individual or collective agent responds to the availability and use of a set of stocks and flows of rules and/or institutions (S), energy and resources (E), information and knowledge (I) that in turn provokes environmental change (C) or impact on the social ecological system. . This model is being developed together with the use of participatory Integrated Assessment focus groups (IA-fgs) with real stakeholders to get insights about agents’ behaviours and the possible architecture of the model so as to increase its socio-ecological robustness and policy relevance. Our research is part of the EU funded project Matisse (Methods and Tools for Integrated Sustainability Assessment)

Landsbygdernas och de mindre orternas civilsamhällen

Denna rapport introducerar det forskningsfält som uppstår när landsbygdsforskning och civilsamhällesforskning möts. Texterna i rapporten presenterades vid en konferens som genomfördes 2021 av en grupp forskare som är verksamma inom civilsamhällesforskning och landsbygdsforskning. Som framgår av konferensens titel, ”Landsbygdernas och de mindre orternas civilsamhällen”, skulle den ge möjlighet för dessa två forskningsområden att mötas och fördjupa varandra. Rapporten är tänkt som en ingång till aktuell forskning på detta tema och vi tror den kan vara intressant läsning för både aktiva inom civilsamhällets organisationer och verksamma inom myndigheter, regioner och kommuner som relaterar till landsbygdernas civilsamhälle i sitt arbete. Rapporten inleds med ett kapitel som kortfattat och översiktligt beskriver hur civilsamhällesforskning och landsbygdsforskning växt fram och diskuterar behovet av forskning som sätter fokus på landsbygdernas och de mindre orternas civilsamhällen. De inkluderade kapitlen presenterar forskning där landsbygdernas civilsamhällen studerats med olika metoder och ur flera olika perspektiv. I den första delen av rapporten presenteras forskning som beskriver skillnader och likheter i civilsamhällesengagemang mellan städer och landsbygd i Sverige, behandlar hur tillgång till service också kan påverka tillit till institutioner och diskuterar betydelsen av känslor i relation till civilsamhällesengagemang och samhällsutveckling. Vidare presenteras en övergripande bild av kunskapsläget om social innovation som svar på landsbygdens samhällsutmaningar, med särskilt fokus på civilsamhällets roll och samverkan med andra samhällsaktörer. Utifrån en studie av civilsamhällesprojekt finansierade med offentliga medel diskuteras också hur de ekonomiska bidragsresurserna omvandlas till immateriella resurser till nytta för lokaldesamhället. Rapporten innehåller också kapitel som diskuterar civilsamhällets alternativa bildningsvägar som utgår från platsers egna premisser, sociala rörelser för hållbarhet på den svensk-samiska landsbygden samt ett kapitel som diskuterar hur medborgarskapet omformas när boende i landsbygder och mindre orter i större utsträckning behöver förlita sig på civilsamhällets lösningar för att få tillgång till vardaglig service och grundläggande infrastruktur

Modeling nutrient cycling and sustainable forest growth in a changing world

It took 70-80 years to realize the width of the impact of industrialization on the forest ecosystems since a forest ecosystem is a "slow system" as seen from a human perspective. An anticipated future climate change and increasing carbon dioxide and ozone levels will change the conditions even more with time and the widely used statistical forest growth models will not be applicable anymore. Computer-based, dynamic ecosystem models are needed to predict the long-term impacts of our present actions. Currently, these ecosystem models have had a tendency to be un-balanced in the level of details; either the vegetation or the soil is described in detailed, which is a major drawback. ForSAFE is a process-based forest ecosystem model system, consisting of four well-known sub-models, created to explore the impacts of climate change, changing air pollution and forest management on the vegetation, the soil and the nutrient cycling in a long-term sustainability perspective. In this thesis the modeling philosophy and the fundamental ideas behind the ForSAFE model system are presented. ForSAFE is developed using a system dynamics approach and is based on concepts of "natural sustainability" and "Liebig’s law of the minimum". The modeled system and its sub-models are explored by the use of system dynamics tools such as causal loop diagrams and feedback loop analysis. Simulation results from Swedish and German forests show that the integrated model is able to consider the influences of feedbacks between the vegetation and the soil under changing climate conditions. This suggests that ForSAFE is suitable as a tool for assessment of the influence of climate change, pollution change and forest management changes on forest sustainability

An interdisciplinary approach to resolving conflict in the water domain

Integrated Water Management (IWM) in line with the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) promotes a collaborative-oriented approach to tackle water management issues. This requires the participation of various government departments and stakeholder groups along with scientists and experts from different scientific disciplines. Conflict, arising from the diversity of perspectives, beliefs and benefits among those interest groups is a common characteristic of integrated water management. In order to benefit from stakeholder participations in supporting and accepting any results obtained in stakeholder meetings etc, the conflict of interests must be addressed. Examining the essence of the conflict, the Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) is a form of knowledge co-production aiming at gathering and synthesizing diverse perceptions of persisting problems. ISA is a cyclical process of scoping, envisioning, experimenting and learning to provide the stakeholder with a deeper understanding of causalities behind the water issues. Following the visionary process of ISA, we particularly focus on agent based modeling as an essential method to understand and visualize the complexity of water resource management. Agent Based Models (ABM.) complements traditional analytic methods and is a useful approach to depict not only the roots of conflict, but also potential resolutions based on stakeholders viewpoints. Nevertheless, ABM and designing and implementing the computer applications, which are supposed to reflect the ideas shaped during the ISA process, is very challenging. There are few examples of computer models, if any, embedding multiple disciplines to capture the interactions among stakeholders related to water issues. As a result of these challenges, many developed models detach from the initial goals and cannot be used effectively to address the problem. We strive to address some of these challenges by recognizing the need for an analytical (conceptual) framework along with empirical evidence from case studies as well as utilizing appropriate methodologies and tools for the implementation phase. Respectively, first, we explore the role of the Agent Modeling Language (AML) to develop the conceptual model upon which the computer models should be built up. AML provides a rich set of modeling constructs for modeling applications that substantiates and/or shows characteristics of multi-agent systems such as a river basin with all its stakeholders. Second, we propose to apply eXtreme Programming (XP) methodology to implement agent-based models. XP is based on short-time software delivery providing the developers with the opportunity of fixing the applications' errors, and changing the direction of development in the early stages. We use an example to illustrate the process of developing an agent-based model and how to deal with the complications of converging different perspectives in the model

Modellering som pedagogisk metod

Att hantera och använda sig av modellerings- och simuleringsverktyg är inte enbart något som en majoritet av våra studenter får stor nytta av i sitt framtida yrkesliv. Det är också användbara pedagogiska verktyg för att nå insikt i hur olika system fungerar, hur vi subjektivt uppfattar att systemen fungerar och även att kommunicera denna uppfattning. I vår undervisning inom Lund University Master’s Programme in International Environmental Science (LUMES) är metoder som “causal loop diagram” och annan “mind mapping” viktiga verktyg för att få studenter med vitt skilda akademiska och kulturella bakgrunder att kommunicera på ett effektivt sätt. Studenterna tvingas även ifrågasätta sina egna värderingar då metoderna förutsätter att de tar klar ställning till hur ett system fungerar. Även för “rena” tekniker/naturvetare har jag funnit att en djupare förståelse för vissa, ofta relativt enkla fenomen och processer, t.ex. kemisk jämvikt, bioackumulation av miljögifter, snabbt och effektivt kan förmedlas med hjälp av att använda modelleringsövningar i undervisningen. Vi jämför de olika studentkategorienas utgångspunkter för att konstruera modeller och visar hur modellering kan användas för olika syften i undervisningen